Chapter 8 - Attention and Perception

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

actively focusing on particular information while simultaneously ignoring other information

Question 2

Internal stimuli

Answer 2

information or sensations that originate from within the body

Question 3

External stimuli

Answer 3

information or sensations that originate from outside the body

Question 4

Sustained attention

Answer 4

focusing on one stimulus or task across a prolonged, continuous period of time

Question 5

Distractions

Answer 5

internal or external stimuli that draw attention away from the current task

Question 6

Divided attention

Answer 6

splitting attention across two or more stimuli at one time

Question 7

Multitasking

Answer 7

the act of working on multiple tasks at one time

Question 8

Selective attention

Answer 8

exclusively focusing attention on a specific stimulus or task while ignoring all other stimuli or tasks

Question 9

Sensory stimuli

Answer 9

the raw pieces of information that are detected by the five senses

Question 10

Sensation

Answer 10

the process of receiving and detecting raw sensory stimuli via sensory organs and sending this information to the brain

Question 11

Perception

Answer 11

the process of selecting, organising, and interpreting sensory information

Question 12

Selection

Answer 12

the process
of attending to certain sensory stimuli, or features of certain stimuli and excluding others

Question 13

Salient

Answer 13

distinctive, prominent, or important

Question 14

Organisation

Answer 14

(in relation to perception) the process of regrouping selected features of sensory stimuli in order to form a cohesive and meaningful understanding

Question 15

Interpretation

Answer 15

(in relation to perception) the process of understanding and assigning meaning to sensory information

Question 16

Visual perception

Answer 16

the process of becoming consciously aware of visual stimuli as a result of the interactions between the visual sensory system, and the individual’s internal and external environments

Question 17

Process of visual perception

Answer 17

Visual stimuli received by the eye as light –> light is received by receptors in retina –> light energy converted into neural message and sent to brain –> info received by occipital lobe to process

Question 18

Gustatory perception

Answer 18

the process of becoming consciously aware of flavour

Question 19

Tastants

Answer 19

the sensory stimuli received in the form of chemical molecules that can be tasted

Question 20

Process of gustatory perception

Answer 20

saliva breaks food into tastings –> which are received by gustatory receptors –> sent to brain by neural impulse –> gustatory cortex in parietal lobe

Question 21

5 basic flavours

Answer 21

Salty, Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Umami

Question 22

Bottom-up processing

Answer 22

perception is determined by incoming sensory information, moving from specific stimulus information to general knowledge

specific to general, unfamiliar and complex

Question 23

Top-down processing

Answer 23

perception is driven by prior knowledge and expectations, moving from general knowledge to specific stimulus information

general to specific, familiar and less complex

Question 24

Schemas

Answer 24

the collection of basic knowledge about a concept or stimuli

Question 25

Photo receptors
(Biological)

Answer 25

the sensory receptors
of the eye which receive light and convert this sensory information into a form that can be sent to the brain

Question 26

Rods
(Biological)

Answer 26

photoreceptors that allow someone to see in low levels of light (black and white, night vision)

Question 27

Cones
(Biological)

Answer 27

photoreceptors that allow someone to see colour and fine details in well-lit conditions (colour, daytime vision)

Question 28

Depth cues

(Biological)

Answer 28

visual clues that allow someone to perceive the world in three dimensions and judge the distance and position of objects in their environment

Question 29

Monocular depth cues *3
(Biological)

Answer 29

• Accommodation (lens bulges when close, flattens when far away)
• Motion parallax (the less objects move the further away they are)
• Pictorial depth cues
  * relative size
  * height in visual field
  * linear perspective
  * interposition (aka overlap)
  * texture gradient

Question 30

Binocular depth cues *2
(Biological)

Answer 30

• Retinal disparity (slight difference between sight in left and right eye)
• Convergence (eyes turn in and that tells us it’s close)

Question 31

Visual perception principles

Answer 31

guiding rules that apply to incoming visual signals and determine how they are organised and interpreted

Question 32

Gestalt principles *4
(psychological)

Answer 32

the guiding rules of perception that allow us to organise and group separate visual stimuli into a meaningful whole

• proximity
• similarity
• figure-ground
• closure

Question 33

Visual constancies *3
(psychological)

Answer 33

our ability to perceive visual objects as staying the same, even though they may appear to change or do change in our sensation

Shape, size and brightness

Question 34

Perceptual set
(psychological)

Answer 34

a predisposition to perceive certain features of sensory stimuli and ignore other features that are deemed irrelevant

Question 35

Social factors of visual perception

Answer 35

Culture - the customs, behaviours, and values of a particular group in society
and cultural norms - a standard, value, or rule that outlines an appropriate behaviour or experience within
a culture

Question 36

Factors influencing gustatory perception

Answer 36

Biological
- age
- genetics
Psychological
- appearance
- food packaging
Social
- culture